Madcap Madge

Summary

Palm Beach’s sun-bleached colonnades become a gilded arena where the Flower clan—fiscal tightrope-walker Mr. Flower, velvet-clawed Mrs. Flower, husband-hunting Julia, and incorrigible Madge—descend like a plague of jeweled locusts. Madge, banished from finishing school after turning the chapel organ into a popcorn cannon, arrives trussed up as a ten-year-old cherub to safeguard Julia’s calculated seduction of the elusive Earl of Larsdale. Yet every prank she unleashes—switching place-cards so that dowagers court footmen, lacing turtle soup with tabasco, releasing a corseted seal into the ballroom—fractures the social kaleidoscope until titles, banknotes, and hearts slide into new, hilarious configurations. In the final moonlit scramble, Madge flees with the supposed earl, only to discover he is an American creditor clutching her father’s promissory notes; the elopement transmutes debt into dowry, rescuing the family from insolvency while Madge claims the only prize she ever wanted—freedom disguised as love.

Synopsis

The social climbing Flower family is comprised of Mr. Flower, a banker who has overextended himself financially, Mrs. Flower, a socially ambitious mother, Julia Flower, a marriage-minded elder daughter and Madge Flower, a high-spirited younger daughter. When Madge is expelled from boarding school for her practical jokes and pranks, she joins her mother and sister in Palm Beach, where they are wintering, in hopes of snaring a titled husband for Julia. Julia, fearful that her little sister will impair her success on the marriage market, forces Madge to dress as a child of ten. Julia has her sights set on the Earl of Larsdale, but after a series of misadventures, Madge elopes with the young man who turns out not to be an earl at all, but a prosperous young American who is holding her father's notes. Thus, she saves the day for the Flower family.